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Weekly News Update: November 10, 2013 to November 16, 2013

PD Lee Yoon-jung (Golden Time) is preparing a new drama project for MBC, a 4-episode miniseries adapted from the Japanese novel 4teen. It’s a coming-of-age story about four fourteen-year-old boys and the struggles they face as urban adolescents, facing poor economic backgrounds, violence, and their own transformations as teens. The work is described as an often funny, thoughtful and relatable story about these young boys’ rebellion, growing pains, and dreams.

The adaptation will naturally transplant the boys to Seoul, and will star four fourteen-year-old boys each with his own personality and unique problems. The first name cast is young actor Chun Bo-geun (Queen’s Classroom). There are mixed reports about when this is due to broadcast, but in any case 4teen is planning to cast and start shooting soon for a possible December premiere.

Sunday night variety show 1 Night 2 Days will be going ahead with Season 3 and members Kim Jong-min and Cha Tae-hyun will be staying on.

tvN’s period sports drama Basketball is getting cut down from its initial order of 24 episodes to 18. Producers insist that it has nothing to do with its ratings. They initially planned to spend the first 18 episodes in the Occupation years, and then cover the liberation years beginning with Episode 19, followed by the division of the peninsula. Only recently did they realize that six episodes wasn’t enough to get the story out. They would rather leave the door open for a Season 2. Basketball airs on Mondays and Tuesdays on tvN, and will now end with Episode 18 on December 17.

The producers of long-running cable series Rude Miss Young-ae are back for romantic comedyLet’s Eat, which follows the lives of Lee Soo-kyung (I Summon You Gold) and her neighbors and colleagues, all of whom are single. She plays a 33-year-old divorcee with a proud, confident air until she’s in front of food. Yoon Doo-joon (IRIS 2) plays a gourmand with particular skill in describing foods and tastes who is Lee Soo-kyung’s next-door neighbor. Playing second leads are Shim Hyung-tak (My Daughter Seo-young) as a lawyer, and rookie actress Yoon So-hee (Sword and Flower). Let’s Eat will air Thursday evenings on tvN beginning November 28.

tvN is preparing an 8-episode drama titled Cheongdam-dong 111 set in an entertainment agency, particularly the company FNC Entertainment. It will portray the life within the company, following the dealings of the stars and trainees as well as staff like managers and secretaries.The show will reportedly be unscripted, allowing for a more realistic vibe. Cheongdam-dong 111 will premiere on Thursday, November 21, as a midnight show.

jTBC’s new drama Mom Needs a Man has a new title which is Could We Love. The drama will star a trio of women all facing forty, each with a different romantic situation. Uhm Tae-woong (Sword and Flower) will star as a famous movie director who wins awards at Cannes. He’s described as a prickly perfectionist with a constant stoic expression that’s unreadable, though he’s said to be full of charisma on set. He has a painful past and has no memory of the mother who abandoned him as a child.Could We Love follows Your Neighbor’s Wife and premieres December 23.

Upcoming action-thriller drama Three Days has lined up and confirmed the rest of its cast. So Yi-hyun (Who Are You)will play one of the Blue House bodyguards. She’ll be the cold, serious, dutiful type who’s the brains of her department. Park Ha-sun is also confirmed to play the other female lead. Sohn Hyun-joo (Empire of Gold) will indeed play president whose intelligence got him to become a president with a strong focus on economic issues. Finally Yoon Je-moon (King 2 Hearts) will play the chief presidential secretary.The drama will premiere in February on SBS.

More casting additions for Miss Korea! Lee Mi Sook (You’re the Best Lee Soon Shin) will play Ma Ae Ri, the director of ‘Queen House Salon.’ Rookie actresses Kim Ye Won (Jewelry), Yoo Eun Ho (I Need Romance 2012), and Ha Yeon Joo (Cyrano Dating Agency) are among the 5 friends involved in the make-over have been cast as well.

MOVIE NEWS

Oh Ji-ho (Ghost-Seeing Detective Cheo-young) will take on Rude Woman, Harsh Man. The movie is about two doctors, opening up their own clinics on the same floor of a building. She’s a urologist with a “kiss allergy,” and he’s an OBGYN with some unspecified physical deformity. Oh Ji-ho’s character is described as having a reason for needing to be utterly abrasive toward women. The characters both harbor wounds, but they’ll find a way to heal each other as their relationship progresses in a bright and cheerful story. Rude Woman, Harsh Man will begin filming in mid-December.

Yoo Ah-in (Jang Ok-jung, Live By Love) is in the considering favorably the movie Veteran about an ex-detective pursues a lawbreaking young chaebol. Yoo Ah In will play the chaebol who commits all sorts of evil deeds and hides behind his money. The project comes from director Ryu Seung-wan (The Berlin File).Veteran will wrap up its casting shortly and plans to begin filming in February or March, to be released next year.